CHESS WORLD CUP: Praggnanandhaa enters final

CHENNAI: India’s 18-year old Grandmaster (GM) R. Praggnanandhaa (ELO 2,707) on Monday entered the FIDE World Cup final after defeating world No. 3 by rating, American GM Fabiano Caruana (2,782), in the semifinal tie-break games played at Baku, Azerbaijan.

The final score stood at 3.5-2.5 in favour of the Chennai youngster. After drawing the first two tie-break games, the Indian slayed Caruana in the third game and drew the next one.

The match went into tie-breaker after the players drew their two classical games earlier. In the tie-breaker, the first two games had ended in draw. The young Indian then won the third game.

Praggnanandhaa will now cross swords with world No. 1 and former world champion Magnus Carlsen of Nor-way in the final.

Having already defeated world No. 2 and world No. 3 in the tournament, will Praggnanandhaa be able to defeat the world No.1 is the question doing the rounds in chess circles now. With this win, Praggnanandhaa also qualified to play in the Candidates Tournament, the winner of which will be the challenger to Chinese GM Liren Ding, the reign-ing world champion. (IANS)

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